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Now, out with it!"
So she told him rather nervously, for she felt that twelve dollars
was a considerable sum. He had laughed, and agreed instantly, but
when he went to buy it he found himself paying a price that rather
startled him.
"Don't you lose it, young lady!" he admonished her when, the day
before Christmas, he fastened it on her wrist. Then he had stooped
down to kiss her, and the intensity of feeling in her face had
startled him. "It's a good watch," he had said, rather uneasily;
"no excuse for your being late now!"
All the rest of the day she was radiant.
He meant well enough even then. He had never pretended to love
her. He accepted her adoration, petted and teased her in return,
worked off his occasional ill humors on her, was indeed conscious
sometimes that he was behaving extremely well in keeping things
as they were.
But by the middle of January he began to grow uneasy. The atmosphere
at Marion's was bad; there was a knowledge of life plus an easy
toleration of certain human frailties that was as insidious as a slow
fever.


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